The issue begins with a very peculiar article by Andy Slack entitled "The Magic Jar." The purpose of the article is to provide brief conversion guidelines between four different pairs of RPGs: En Garde! to AD&D; Spacequest to Traveller; AD&D to Chivalry & Sorcery; and Spacefarers to Traveller. The guidelines offered are limited primarily to comparing dice probabilities and bits of advice on differences in feel between the paired games. I'm honestly unsure how useful this article would be, but I nevertheless find it fascinating for the games Slack includes. AD&D and Traveller figure prominently, as one might expect. The others are much more obscure today and I can't help but wonder how significant they were at the time of publication.
"Sorry!" is a Traveller scenario by Bob McWilliams specifically written for characters who "shoot first and ask questions later." Basically, McWilliams presents a situation involving multiple alien life forms with which the characters are not familiar and only be observation and thought can they be sure which is – or is not – a threat. Adventures like this are interesting for what they suggest about the play styles of the time. For example, the reference to "shoot first and ask questions later" at the start would imply that The Travellers was more than mere satire.
"Open Box" reviews a variety of game products, starting with the Fiend Folio (8 out of 10), which is it calls "advantageous … [but] not essential to own." ICBM by Mayfair only scores 4 out of 10, in part because it might "have the effect of endorsing Reagan's arms build-up." OK, then. More positively reviewed are Judges Guild's Ley Sector for Traveller (6 out of 10), Marooned/Marooned Alone (10 out of 10), and Library Data (A–M) (9 out of 10), also for Traveller. Finally, there is Undead by Steve Jackson Games (8 out of 10).
"War Smiths" is a new class for AD&D created by Roger E. Moore. It's an unusual class that is somewhat reminiscent of the paladin in that it's a fighter sub-class that can use spells. However, its focus is, as its name suggests, the creation of weapons and armor whose quality improves as they level up. I don't see the necessity for such a class myself, but Moore seems to have done a good job in designing it. I could say similar things about Steve Cook's "On Target," a critical hit system for use with Traveller. "Operation Counterstrike" by Marcus L. Rowland is a D&D adventure for use with the space travel rules he presented in the preceding issues. The adventure is loosely based on The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells – hardly a surprise coming from the writer who'd create the Forgotten Futures RPG.
"Treasure Chest" presents five new magic items, including Jeckyll's [sic] Potion, inspired by The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It's worth noting that two of the five items are written by Roger E. Moore and another by his wife, Georgia. Meanwhile, "Fiend Factory" details five new sylvan monsters for AD&D, like the (unexpectedly good) black unicorn and birch spirits. While I'm not always keen on the specific monsters featured in these columns, I very much appreciate editor Albie Fiore's use of environmental themes as an organizing principle.
This is another strong issue of White Dwarf. I'm likely biased in this regard, because of my love of Traveller and AD&D, articles for which I generally enjoy. Even so, I don't think it can be disputed that the magazine's quality continues to improve with each issue.
Just making a guess here, but the reason for more prominence of science fiction in White Dwarf might be down to Dr Who. Certainly it was prominent in the TV schedules in the late 70s and early 80s when we only had 3 TV channels broadcasting. Dr Who was also the keystone of the science fiction and fantasy section of my local libraries. There was far more SF than fantasy available to me.
ReplyDeleteVery possible. The popular Tom Baker era had just finished in March 1981. Blakes 7 had also just finished in December 1981.
DeleteWasn't there also a lot of influence from Gerry Anderson's shows? Space 1999 was running throughout the mid-70s, and his earlier shows (both UFO and the puppet stuff) must have still been in reruns.
DeleteSF was prevalent in popular culture at that time. Dr Who and Blakes 7 have been mentioned. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had expanded from radio series to novels to TV. 2000 AD was widely read and very influential, at least in my peer group. Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers might have finished but we were still eagerly awaiting the third film in the Star Wars trilogy.
DeleteThe SF sections in bookshops still boasted shelves full of Anderson, Asimov, Dickson, Harrison, Silverberg, Van Vogt, etc. There was high fantasy too, of course, but it was not the publishing behemoth it would become. (The Belgariad was just around the corner.)
Perhaps it's less surprising that White Dwarf should feature SF so heavily than that Dragon did not.
Quite possibly; it's all a bit before my time, but the Anderson stuff was constantly repeated as I was growing up a few years later, so I can well believe they were around 79-81 too.
DeleteOne consideration for The Dragon - TSR's only SFRPGs at the time were Metamorphosis Alpha and Gama World.
Delete@clawcover is spot on. There wasn't much to buy in the wsy if fantasy except Tolkien, Lieber, Howard and Donaldson.
DeleteBut there were paperbacks of Foundation everywhere.
"Basically, McWilliams presents a situation involving multiple alien life forms with which the characters are not familiar and only be observation and thought can they be sure which is – or is not – a threat."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like something from James White or Poul Anderson, both of whom wrote stories where the protagonists are confronted with unfamiliar species and have trouble figuring out which ones are even sapient, much less dangerous. Good concept for a mystery adventure, especially if there's a time pressure element built in - a medical emergency for White's work, or pursuing enemies for Anderson.
On the obscure conversions to Traveller, Space Quest and Spacefaring, while obscure, were among the few contenders to Traveller.
ReplyDeleteEn Garde and Chivalry and Sorcery make sense, and I believe C&S had particular popularity in the UK.
FGU's Space Opera had come out in 1980, and was making some waves at that point. Being in bed with Martian Metals didn't hurt any with that.
DeleteEn Garde! is niche, but it's audience was already established by that point. And my impression is that it was always bigger in the UK than the US; certainly it was prominent enough that I picked up my copy from Virgin Megastore. (The jokes write themselves really, don't they?)
ReplyDeleteHmmm...I'm a little confused about that conversion article, specifically the Spacefarers to Traveller bit. Are we talking about the late 70s Spacefarers from Phoenix Games (which was definitely an RPG, although I never saw a copy in person) or the 1981 Spacefarers from Games Workshop? The latter was more of a very small model count minis game with some light RPG elements, but it was also brand new, and from GW, and I can see where it could be converted to Traveller easily so the 15mm scale minis range could be used with Snapshot/AHL/Mercenary/Striker.
ReplyDeleteIt's the GW Spacefarers.
DeleteAh, thanks. That makes more sense. Don't think it would be an exaggeration to call the Phoenix RPG obscure, whereas I actually owned a copy of the GW one by 1985 or thereabouts. Not a bad set of minis rules although we played it entirely with 15mm Laserburn figs - which is pretty ironic, considering the competing history of teh two games.
DeleteJames, I think you've answered your own question there!
DeleteDick, I'm not sure there was much competition between the two rule sets: the author of Laserburn was Bryan Ansell, the same person who ran Citadel Figures that produced the Spacefarers line of figures that the GW rules were named after.